Parenting now is not a kid’s play

Yesterday a huge newspaper advertisement about a baby show at neighborhood school glared at me. I looked at it and then ignored it and then gave it a sly look. I knew for sure that my Mr Right doesn’t get excited about such shows. His reason: “my baby is not to be upheld for advertising of any sorts, whatever he is… he is good enough for me”.

Right then a neighbor – who is also a close friend and has a son about the same age as my son – popped a Whatapp message, “hey lets go to this baby show tomm…. It will be a good exposure for kids ”.

The school in question is located in the next corner, so all sorts of excuses ran futile. On the pretext of inquiring about school fee and curriculum I dished out a proposal for attending the baby show to Mr Right. Surprisingly he agreed (may be because I mentioned the school curriculum and admission inquiry instead of the baby show).

Today, it was icy cold but I was surprised to see harried parents running towards school along with their kids. And kids, my my, were dressed in attires cut straight from Bollywood. A little girl had put on fairy dress, a boy was dressed as krishna, another one was dressed as politician, and my kid was in the rockstar avatar. I had done the basic minimum – put him rugged jeans and jacket and a spiked hair. Every kid beamed with smile, chased balloons at the school campus, got busy drinking cola and munching chips.

Of course there were the regular rounds to judge a kids’ activities, parents’ awareness and other things. What struck me was that there were so many parents even from very humble backgrounds. This whole glitz wasn’t just about middle class people. Also the awareness rounds proved that every parent had decent knowledge about hygine, good eating habits and even about inculcating good habits in kids.

A decade ago the numbers for such parents could have been less. Almost all parents were curious about admissions, curriculum, schedules etc. Given the fact that most kids there were below 3 years and the concern that parents had for these kids and learning processes was really noteworthy.  I cant really say if so much concern is a good thing or not but then in a society where good schools = good marks = good future equation holds prominence what else can you expect from a parent?

What's there is a name?

When Shakespeare asked this, little did he realise that ages later we would have a variety of replies - rather retort - to his question.

Remember Amir Khan as the adorable 'Ranchordas Shamaldas Chanchad' in 3 Idiots. Of course his character is strong but so is the recall value of his name in the film. And again, this week's release Khatta Meetha starring Akshay Kumar has a very uncommon name to his character - Sachin Tichkule. In all the promos, he stands out shouting his name, which acts like a brand value for the film.

Decades ago, we had Amitabh Bachchan as Vijay in almost all his films and Salman Khan as the chocolate boy Prem in at least a dozen of his films.

Today our name works like a trademark of sorts. Whatever name we carry will be our trademark for entire lives. Hence, new-age parents spend hours on internet to find a unique name for their child. Similarly in popular culture including films, TV serials, advt, comics or novels the names of characters help in brand/product recall. Would you every forget Lalitaji from Surf Advt or Ba and Mihir after watching Kyuki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Same is the case with Ranchordas Shamaldas Chanchad and Sachin Tichkule.

When I was growing up in the 90's most of my classmates and cousins were named Pooja, Shweta, Poonam, Payal, Ruchika, Megha, Kriti, Ashish, Rachna, Arun, Abhishek etc. But today my nephew’s classmates bear names like Navya, Siona, Agni, Geet, Vitul, Shreshth, Pariket, Himaghna etc

And it doesn’t end here. The pets too are named differently. Gone are names like Tommy, Jacky, Tiger  for doggies, New-Age pooches flaunt glamorous names like Jake, Goldie (my neighbour’s pet), Snoopy (that's a friends pet) even Rachel. And hey my fish have snooty names too, I call the orange shoal Blossoms and the black one Patice.

Actually, it’s all a part of the society being more conscious of their image - how we look, how people speak about us etc. This includes right dressing, right mannerisms, right schooling... and bearing the right name is actually the first step in this process.

So here goes to our new-age sensibilities and new-age names.